


The One That's (Not) The One

by suchfun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Weird City, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 01:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17777966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchfun/pseuds/suchfun
Summary: Last week Derek turned thirty, and Laura thought it would be "beneficial" to sign him up for The One That's The One. Laura has a Match, but Cora doesn't, and she seems to like it that way. Cora thinks the concept of soul mates is bullshit.Outwardly, Derek agrees with her. Deep down inside, Laura knows him better than anyone.All of which is why call-me-Stiles is currently standing in his home, at five past midnight. Standing in his home,touching his stuff, andtalking.How the fuck did he think this was a good idea?





	The One That's (Not) The One

**Author's Note:**

> This heavily, heavily influenced by the first episode of Weird City. Some things I've made up and/or embellished, which was fun, but at heart it's—it's the first episode of Weird City (also the only one I've seen so far). Parts of this might not be fully clear unless you've watched it too.
> 
> This also fits into the last day of Sterek Valentine Week (Be Mine), which I REALLY wanted to write for but was convinced I wouldn't be able to. So, yay?

"No," Derek says, arms sliding across his chest before he can even stop them. Laura has always said that his defense mechanisms are too obvious. "That's not— there's no way that kid is my One That's The One."

"Well firstly, he's not a kid," Doctor Martin says, withdrawing the tablet, a pissy frown forming. "No one under the age of 21 is legally allowed to apply. Secondly, this is an entirely scientific process. The science is not wrong. My— _this science_ is never wrong. Miec— Mi—" She frowns harder, staring down at the name on the screen, and Derek smirks. 

He knows how to say it. But he's not going to help her. Not when she's obviously a fraud. 

"Mr Stilinski," she settles on finally, tossing her hair defiantly, "is definitely your match."

"Sure," Derek says dismissively. "Look, are we done here? I'm not indulging this farce any longer."

Doctor Martin tucks the tablet under her arm. She steps closer, eyes never leaving Derek's, and leans in menacingly. Derek's not sure how a woman that's no more than five three can manage to be so scary, but he legitimately has to fight the urge to take a step back.

"Listen, Mr Hale," she says coldly. "I know Stiles. I know that he's really been anticipating finding his match. This was not a mistake. You're his match, this is happening, and if you ruin this for any of us…" She gives him a smug little smirk. "Just remember that we've got your DNA on file. And I'm not afraid to use it."

Derek clears his throat, just barely standing his ground. She's full of shit, and they both know it, but. Still. 

Finally, he convinces himself he won't lose face by stepping back, so he does, he several steps back, and he shakes out his arms. "My sister already paid, right?" 

"Your account has been settled." Doctor Martin forces a pleasant smile that's more like a demented grimace. "Your Match will arrive at your premises at midnight. You have until then to get your act together. Have a nice day." She whirls around and stalks away, her fierce-looking heels echoing throughout the room, and Derek goes about finding his own way out. 

*

Derek wasn't born Above The Line. He hasn't had his life planned out for him since he was a gleam in his mother's surgically removed, readjusted and then reimplanted eye. His life has been full of transitions and inconsistencies. He's made it work here, though, Above The Line. He works even though he doesn't have to. He can fix things privileged born Aboves don't even realise need regular maintenance, let alone need to be fixed. It's not the most respectable of jobs but he makes good credits. He gets along well enough with his co-workers, sees Laura once every few weeks, and gets sporadic emails from Cora. It's fine. 

But last week he turned thirty, and Laura thought it would be "beneficial" to sign him up for The One That's The One. Laura has a Match, but Cora doesn't, and she seems to like it that way. Cora thinks the concept of soul mates is bullshit. 

Outwardly, Derek agrees with her. Deep down inside, Laura knows him better than anyone. 

All of which is why call-me-Stiles is currently standing in his home, at five past midnight. Standing in his home, _touching his stuff_ , and _talking_.

How the fuck did he think this was a good idea? 

"I think this is a bad idea," he says abruptly, cringing as Stiles puts his hands all over Derek's trophy wall. They're not worth much these days, considering all the trophy stores in town, but these ones were his family's. From Below. "You should go."

Stiles hums. "Yeah, Lydia told me you were an asshole. You might know her as Doctor Martin. Me and her go way back." His fingers trail over Derek's favourite trophy, the smallest one, the one his mom won for her study on the effects of narcissism on the brain that's _actually_ shaped like a brain. Derek has to physically stop himself from removing said fingers. 

Admittedly, they're nice fingers. Long. Dexterous. That doesn't mean he wants them all over _his stuff_. 

"If Doctor Martin knows you so well, how come she didn't know your real name is Mieczyslaw?" he bites out. 

"Would you tell anyone your real name is Mieczyslaw? It's probably the most Below The Line name in all of recent history. Not that I'm— I'm not ashamed of being from Below, okay? But the anti-Belows are everywhere and anywhere. It's just easier."

"And do you always take the easy way out?" Derek snipes. He's aware of how bitter he sounds. Truly. It's just—this _guy_. How could they possibly be meant to be together? 

"I showed up here, didn't I? I didn't even realise I liked dudes, this is like shifting my whole world view right now. Okay maybe that's a lie, maybe I've always liked dudes, but making myself admit it, that's some growth right there. Also I may have stopped at one of the therapy vending machines on my way here." He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket, waves it around. "It said _don't let past prejudices influence future happiness_ , which is conveniently vague enough yet _just_ specific enough to apply to me in this scenario, so I went with it."

Derek pauses. "You used one of the vending machines?" Of course he did, of course he used one, and of course it sent him here.

"You gonna judge me for my mental health status now?" Stiles asks sharply, eyeing Derek. "Are you qualified to do that?"

"No, I just—" His mouth snaps shut. Stiles just waits, watching him patiently. Derek doesn't like it. He keeps talking just so he can get Stiles to stop looking at him like that. "My mom invented those," he admits. "It's why I'm here. I'm from Below The Line too."

"For real?" Stiles squinted at him. 

"In the beginning the advice they gave was more specific but it gave too many people existential crises, so she formed a team to create the perfect balance of, well…" He gestures to Stiles. 

"Vague specificity, yeah. That makes sense. Kind of."

Derek nods. 

Stiles nods. 

Derek crosses his arms. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this." 

"Uh, because we're each other's One? May as well start sharing now. We've got our whole lives to get good at it." He goes back to snooping through Derek's stuff. 

Derek— Derek, for some reason, lets him. 

*

The next few months pass in a blur. There's fucking, for which they are highly compatible, if nothing else. 

Except. 

They're compatible pretty much everywhere else, too. There's bickering. There's talking. There's sharing emotions. There's hugs and open arms. There's even more fucking. There's meeting family. There's Laura not really liking Stiles but having to accept him because she's the one who paid to find him, and Stiles' dad liking Derek because Derek helps to fix his Insta-coffee machine. And his roof. And all the other things Stiles has apparently been promising to fix over the years, but never following through on.

There's Derek liking Stiles more and more each day, somehow, despite thinking that he's surely reached the limits of how much he can like someone. 

There also Stiles driving him nuts, of course there is, but apparently Derek likes that too. 

"I'm an idiot," Derek huffs, as Stiles levers himself off Derek and collapses next to him on the bed. "I can't believe I like you so much."

"I used to not believe it either, but according to the vending machine it was because I had you on a pedestal."

"So you could worship me easier, I get it."

Stiles rolls his eyes, reaching over to pinch at Derek's nipple. "It's something I tend to do with people I—" He cuts himself off, looking up at Derek with big vulnerable eyes. Derek forces himself to look back. 

"It's okay," Derek says softly, rubbing a thumb across Stiles' cheekbone, enjoying the way it makes his eyelids flutter. "My 'like' has kind of tumbled over into… more, too."

"You're so romantic," he says dryly, but he's craning his head up, lips wet, ready to be kissed, and—

"Um," a voice, a different voice, a not-Stiles-or-Derek voice says. 

They both freeze, mouths barely an inch apart, and turn to see… Doctor Martin standing at the end of their bed. She looks… contrite? 

Derek blinks. It never even occurred to him that she would be capable of making that expression. 

"How did you get in here," he says, at the same time as Stiles', "Lyds, is everything okay?" 

Doctor Martin's fingers clench impotently. Her hands look unnatural without a tablet in them. "I have something… some news."

Derek looks at Stiles. Stiles looks at Derek. They lever themselves up in the bed. Derek feels like he's going to be sick. 

He slides his arms across his chest. 

*

"The science was wrong," he tells Laura, dully. "Stiles isn't my One."

"He— what? They what?" she says, outraged. She even puts down her tea. "What?"

Derek sighs. "Whatever. It's not like you liked him anyway."

"I didn't… not like him. He seemed like a decent enough person. Honestly, what I like or don't like doesn't even matter here, you liked him. He was your One."

"Apparently not. Apparently we have different Ones."

She reaches over, probably to touch him, to comfort, but he doesn't want that. He avoids it, settling back into the armchair like it's a motion he intended all along.

Laura's quiet for a few moments. "So who is your One?" 

"I don't know. I haven't asked yet. I think Stiles, I think he— He met his yesterday."

"Oh Derek. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." It's a phrase he's more than used to hearing, by now.

*

Derek hasn't really slept much, these last few days. Alone in his bed, alone on his couch-bed, alone on his couch, none of it is conducive to a proper rest. He wanders a lot. It's always busy out, Above The Line. There's no curfew and most of the facilities are 24-hour. He tries to avoid the spots where he and Stiles went, but they managed to cover a lot of ground in their months together. There are a lot of memories.

He's supposed to meet his proper One tomorrow. Maybe he can make some new memories. He doesn't want to, but maybe. 

Tonight, he ends up on the bridge that overlooks The Line checkpoint. Stiles never wanted to come up here, mostly because he didn't like heights, but he claimed it was because it seemed depressing. In all honestly it's actually quite pretty, with a relatively even mixture of intricately-planted greenery and man-made technology. There's the invisible barrier beside the walkway, so no one can fall. The water fountains dotted along at even intervals, providing flavoured H2O capsules. 

And a therapy vending machine, only a few feet away, standing tall between a bed of sunflowers and some kind of bonsai configuration. 

Derek glares at it. Stiles really did love using them. He actually _enjoyed_ seeing what they'd say about him. Sometimes, he'd drag Derek around to as many different ones as he could within as short a time as possible, just to laugh at their contradicting advice.

For all his connections to the machines, Derek's never actually used one. What would it say about him now? What would his mom say, if she were still alive? Would she hug Derek, let him grieve? Would she tell him to get over himself, because he's loved and lost but at least he still has a One? Would she cry for him? Should _he_ cry? Should he rage and scream? Should he be doing more than wandering around in this dull, Stiles-less haze? 

What should he be _doing_?

Before he knows it, he's standing in front of the therapy machine, scanning his wrist, pressing _Total Failure_ on the touch screen, and his receipt is sliding out. 

Derek stares at it. 

He forces himself to pick it out. Forces himself to turn it over. Forces himself to read the message. 

_When life gives you lemons, don't force yourself to make lemonade. Try to recognise that the bitterness is only temporary, and don't forget to brush your teeth._

He snorts, crumpling the paper in his hands, because— _he_ wrote that one. As a _joke_. He wrote it, and slipped it into the pile of approved messages when his mom wasn't looking. Now hundreds of people have probably read it and tried to make sense of it, and even _used it_ , and he can't believe that now, right now, this vague specificity _from himself_ is actually making him feel a little better. 

It might just be the thought of Stiles maybe one day reading this and laughing about it that makes him feel better. If there's one thing that makes him feel better, it's thinking of S—

"So, someone once told me that science is never wrong," says— says—

Shit. Shit. Derek's can't even— he should turn around and look. But what if he's just projecting? He accidentally did that last week, thought of Stiles at the exact time a ProjectA rolled past. The confused little robot had accidentally shown everyone in the bar Derek's fondest showering-with-Stiles memory, and then Derek had had to take it home and update its sensitivity training.

"Someone once— will you turn the fuck around? I love your back almost as much as your front, but human beings, you know, we live for eye contact. It's kind of our thing."

Human beings. That's— it's illegal for a robot to to claim humanity, they're hard-wired not to, even the glitchy little early-model ProjectAs. So that must mean it's. It's. 

Slowly, Derek turns. 

Stiles steps closer. 

He smiles. 

Derek smiles. 

"Hey," Derek says. 

"Hey." Stiles takes another step. "So I was saying something. What was I saying?" 

"I don't." Derek can't help it. His eyes slip down to Stiles' mouth. He wrenches them back up again, but the damage is done. Stiles rarely misses a thing. "I'm. I don't know."

"That's okay," Stiles says magnanimously. "I can remember. I think I was saying that I miss you. And I love you. And honestly?" He pulls back a little, raising his eyebrows. "I think I've learned something really important from this experience. Wanna know what it is?"

Derek nods.

"Fuck. Science," Stiles says.

"Fuck science?" 

" _Fuck science_."

Derek looks down at the piece of paper in his hand. A smile, unbidden but unstoppable, spreads across his face. "Fuck science," he agrees, and pulls Stiles into a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything (at all? anything decent? who can tell) in a long time. The last year has been stuffed full of every type of hurdle I can imagine. But then I watched Weird City at 6am and started writing at 8am and now twelve hours later there's this.
> 
> I'm excited and terrified to be posting again.


End file.
